Summary
1. In a better market, there would probably have been at least a few more new CDN entrants by now. 2. As it did with Cogent Communications several years ago, Cisco Systems would have financed the purchase of equipment for the service provider. 3. It seems unlikely that Cisco would stay in the CDN space indefinitely.
Analysis
It probably does not take Sherlock Holmes to do some relatively easy deduction. Cisco just entered the server market. CDNs spend a lot of money on servers. So, it is not that surprising that Cisco is considering entry into the CDN market to boost sales and get additional visibility on its product line. Another reason for potentially getting into the business is that it would showcase Cisco’s “Unified Computing System” concept.
The question has been asked – why does not Cisco just buy one of the existing CDN players? The answer appears to be that it wants to start off with a totally new network that would be based exclusively around the UCS vision.
It is hard to envision Cisco remaining in effect a service provider for a long time. Cisco would probably sell off the business.
